Genius Creative

There is nothing that annoys me more than creatives producing ads centered around a cool gimmick when that gimmick doesn't back up a message. One key advice I always give is that it is not enough for an ad to have a cool gimmick, that gimmick needs to make a point. 

My frustration with pointless gimmicks was recently awoken by the current Ford print ad for Ford Israel (see below). The ad looks to promote the new Ford Explorer's Park Assist feature which aims to 'help you park easily.'

The ad centers around an optical illusion, with the copy prompting the viewer to "Stare at the black dot for 30 seconds. Move your eyes to the empty parking space. See how easy it is to park."  It is not the first time an optical illusion has been used in an ad, but it is the perfect example of when gimmicks go wrong. Asking an audience to stare at an ad for 30 seconds requires a big punchline, sadly, this ad fails to deliver.

Now, I have stared at this ad on numerous occasions and each time, my eyes ram the SUV into the parked cars which gives the opposite message to that intended; it is not easy to park with Park Assist, actually it is rather hard and you leave the ad feeling frustrated, unimpressed and confused. Whilst the gimmick may have seemed like a fun way to promote a feature, with no substance the ad falls flat on its face.

Being the Founder of the ethical advertising agency We Are Good, I'm always on the lookout for cool upcoming eco companies. Today, Sprout grabbed my attention. Sprout is an ingenious little invention and world first, branded as 'the pencil that grows.'

The idea is simple, in a bid to tackle throw-away culture, users when done with their Sprout pencil, can then pot it and watch it grow into a plant. Tomato, basil, green peppers, rosemary and egg plants are just a few of the types of seed up for grabs. 

Sprout has a lot of eco credentials going for it too. Handmade in Minnesota, USA the pencils are non-toxic and contain absolutely no lead.  The seeds inside the pencils are organic and each pencil contains around 5 pesticide-free seeds, exact number depends on the type of herb.

LG's new OLED-TV is 4mm thin. A product feature they wanted to push in their advertising. M&C Saatchi, the agency in charge of the account, discovered that the spine of the 'Sound & Vision' magazine was also 4mm thick and decided to use it as a print ad opportunity to push LG's TV. 

In this very clever albeit cruel stunt 'Trojan Mailing', DHL get their competitors to advertise for them.  UPS and other delivery services were tricked into delivering parcels which were in fact just moving billboards advertising DHL. The idea involved covering delivery boxes in thermo-active foil which hid DHL's sneaky message when cool. The package's delivery addresses were purposefully hard to find so that when the secret message was revealed 'DHL is faster' it would have even more impact. Even though delivery men saw the message, they obviously had no choice but to deliver the parcels. 

Whilst it is a great idea that truly gets across the product's USP, the idea has been done before. German watch maker Festina sold their waterproof watch in bags of water http://bit.ly/1hbHXlT. 

Social Media is an invaluable tool. If used correctly it can create a real personality for a brand and gain them lots of new customers. Two perfect examples of this happened last week.

One was a Twitter rap battle between Tesco Mobile and O2.  Tesco surprisingly beat the king of social media O2, providing much better copy and generally being more on the ball. O2 was made out to be the uncool kid when it tried to promote its Be More Dog campaign in the rap battle. 

The other example was Twitter banter between the brands Innocent, O2 and Tango. Again O2 tried to promote its Be More Dog campaign by hijacking a picture of a puppy that was tweeted by smoothie company Innocent.

Some people argue that traditional media will soon be long forgotten and used less as we enter a digitally focused future. However, advertisements such as this one for Nivea sunscreen prove that print media and other traditional forms can still make an impact just as much as digital can, you just have to be innovative with it.